Glenn

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Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance

(1997)

  • Maps male GlennRR.jpgand then inserts women
  • Explains why women have been excluded from the rhetorical tradition from antiquity through the renaissance. Provides the opportunity for Sappho, Aspasia, Diotima, Hortensia, Fulvia, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Margaret More Ruber, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I to speak with equal authority and as eloquently as Plato.
  • Locates women's contributions and participation in the rhetorical tradition and writes them into an expanded inclusive tradition. Hmmmm can you?
  • Regenders the tradition by designating those terms of identity that have promoted and supported men’s control of public, persuasive discourse—the culturally constructed social relations between and appropriate roles for and subjective identities of women and men.
  • This is the first systematic, contextualization, analysis, to locate these women. She follows the migration of the western intellectual tradition
  • She stops at the enlightenment because says that when humanity centered on the telus of perfect maleness with women and children perceived as undeveloped men came to an end.
  • Ch 2. “Classical Rhetoric Conceptualized or Vocal Men and Muted Women” I note her double titles, which seem to echo the logical male patriarchal title and then a truer more immediate female one. In this chapter she looks at the Pythagorean women—Plato’s Diotim and Aspasia of Miletus—all contributed to philosophical thinking that added to rhetoric.
  • The Roman women, Hortensia 42 BC—represented all women of her class when she addressed the Roman triurrus . also Fulvia Amaaia, Gaia, etc.
  • Ch 3. “Medieval Rhetoric: Pagan roots, Christian Flowering: or Veiled Voiced in Medieval Rhetorical Tradition. Julia of Norwich, Margery Kempe and others demonstrate real rhetorical sophistication believed to be inaccessible to women at the time.
  • Ch 4. More Renaissance. Uses map metaphor heavily—Glenn is adding settlements of women to the map. Inscribed in the margins: Renaissance women and Rhetorical Culture. Roper, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I.
  • For past 2500 years of western culture the ideal woman has been disciplined by cultural codes that require a closed mouth (silenced) closed body (chastity), and an enclosed life (domestic confinement). Hence closed out of the vocal, virile and public tradition of rhetoric.
  • This book is historiography, feminism, and gender study. Resists paternal narratives.
  • “I wanted to challenge the male-dominated story of rhetoric by telling the story of Aspasia that illustrated various renditions of an emblem of woman and women in the rhetorical history.
  • There is no one truth in history. A rhetorical history not the rhetorical history.—sophistic?
  • Uses Burke’s terministic screen as selection and deflection of reality—all are stories.
  • Cites Man Cannot Speak for Her: A Critical Study of Early Feminist Rhetoric by Karlyn Kohrs (suffragettes etc)
  • Also Reclaiming Rhetorica, Lunsfore ed. Essays of attempts to reclaim.
  • “Dead, I / Won’t be forgotten” sang Sappho. Greek singers later recorded in writing.
  • Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (900-700 BCE) though excluded in life, Homer’s female characters are strong and eloquent rhetors
  • Sappho (600 BCE) poet on same level as Homer. Plato invokes Sappho as the tenth Muse—as if not human woman. 9 books of lyric poems, only 1 survives entirely.
  • Gorgias probability, Isocrates virtues of speech itself, of logos. Isocrates first to publish speeches rather than create.
  • Oikos-domestic. Polis-public
  • Sappho—very talented, able to shift from traditional to personal.
  • Pythagoras School. Disciples/commune. Male and female students with life study manifesto. Equal opportunity though admire differences between the sexes. Gave advice to Socrates, Sappho—Aspasia was Turkish Greek subject. 500 BCE Her education is a mystery. She is an exception to the rule, she was respected and mentioned by Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, etc.
  • Diotima: Diotima’s presence resonates with the passions—the body, the family, and the private realm. Also, life and birth. Emphasizes the superior value of the intellece and the erotic appetite with beauty. Plato reincarnation, Diotima, says no--eros=beauty=reproduction=live on through children. But I say this requires male female not male male relationships, so Plato comes from a different erotic ideal.
  • Isocrates calls for the citizen orator, also influenced by Plato and Socrates, but they are not “pro-woman” they see her as an exception. The woman speaking like a man that will later emerge.
  • Roman—Cicero—ideal orator is eloquent philosopher with service to the republic. Woman as failed male fetuses.
  • Les Oppia—regulations and restrictions against women—may not posess more thatn ½ oz of gold. No purple trimmed clothing, etc. Repealed but with protest, . some felt women’s extravagance would bring down the Roman Empire.
  • Some Roman women speak in public. Cornelia 180 BCE. I see beginnings of republican motherhood here in how Cornelia educates her sons.
  • Hortensia—athers women to protest the taxation of women (war widows and especially wives of exiles)
  • Medieval: the bible as text of history. Rhet traveled with the Romans. Noble women had less autonomy than poor ones. Widows were best off. Men traced bloodline through sister’s children—nephews very important. Mary, mother of Jesus, though worshiped, does nothing to raise women. Paul's misogynistic passages have great influence. Aurthurian Legend—Morgan LaFey woman as evil. Women were to dedicate themselves to the family or church. Church guides rhetoric. Augustine, rhet must be available to further the church. persuasive power from God.
  • Julian of Norwich 1345-1415) Exception to the rule that English women did not write books. Enters the rhet of religion. Wrote using her visions during illnesses. Tells other to report. Understands her rhetorical situation and disclaims. Helps develop a rhetoric of theology
  • Margery Kempe 1373-1439 Rhet of autobiography 14 children—travels around praying—on pilgrimages. Her book is neglected until 1934. The Book of Margery Kempe. In vernacular, first woman to write life story in the vernacular. Contemporary of Chaucer and Malory.
  • Projects ethos through Franciscan sensibility
  • Renaissance—English. Triumph of English vernacular. Protestants—vernacular bible. Mare More Roper—Christian Humanism. Anne Askew - Prot. Reformation. Elizabeth I English Imperialism. Women and man marry and become one entity—the woman disappears. A woman who becomes educated does so by listening in to brother’s tutors. Tudor period ideal: beauty, modesty, education. Finally education, but rich women only. Elizabeth ungenders herself to become rhetorical. Read the words of men, but do not write them. Askew was tortured for reformation, would not give up info, used rhetorical skill to keep silent while pleading her case. Primogeniture
  • Elizabeth body of woman, heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England, too.
  • Androgyny trope and I say, perpetual virgin.
  • Silence itself as a rhet trope—as a strategy of resistance. Echoes Butler’s excitable speech comments on silence in a fashion.